by Prue Batten
The woman’s soft fingers stroked his forehead, loosening the muscles that had tightened like twisted rope as she conversed. Her gentle tones raised an image of a mother in his mind. Was this how my mother would have spoken to me? He whimpered with loss and she breathed close by his ear.
‘Hush, Finnian, all will be well, all things will be well. Listen to me now. Life is a lesson. Long or short, one learns. And you have such a lot to learn.’
He pulled himself up against the wall, dragging a leg and holding it by the knee, every movement as fluid and loose as a baby. The habitual sharpness of his state had dulled with the tenderness of the Black Madonnas and he felt cocooned and removed as he gazed at the woman of starlight. He sucked a deep breath through his nose, savouring the dangerous tang of the burning resin as it tugged him even further from reality. ‘You think I give a Traveller’s curse for learning, for value, for honour? I tell you, I learned about value today. I watched a djinn play a game and kill a child. Two days ago I played a game and a wight killed an innocent man.’ He laughed and to his blunt senses it sounded as bitter as the resin on the brazier. ‘You see? It doesn’t take a lifetime to learn? A minute. A kick with a camel’s hoof and a babe is killed. It’s that quick. Pfft!’ He flicked his fingers. ‘That quick,’ he repeated. He lay down again, flopping onto his side like a doll, his back facing the woman. ‘Bain as, Moonlady. Piss off!’
It felt as if hours passed but it was seconds and the woman spoke sharply. ‘Turn over and listen, Finnian. You behave like a spoiled child. The time has come for you to stop hiding behind your hurts because what you do now is the act of a coward.’
The word echoed, coward, coward, coward, through his mind and rage at such an inference wiped some of the insidious lassitude away. He sat up as quickly as his body would allow, words slurring. ‘A coward who took every bit of punishment but kept trying to get away and all the while that woman would use her powers to track me. She does it even now. She knows I’m in Fahsi.’ He slumped back against the wall, nausea rising and suddenly he grabbed at the bowl on the table, puking until he hurt.
‘She knows nothing,’ the woman of moonlight rebuked when he lay down exhausted on the divan. ‘She tricked you. She had a castle full of spies and she had only to be in the right place at the right time. She made you fearful, Finnian, that is all. She worked away at your child’s emotions as water works at stone so that the man that you have become is engraved with anxiety and looks constantly over his shoulder. In truth you are now as free as you shall ever be.’
‘Free?’ He laughed weakly.
‘Aye, free,’ he felt the coolness of her hands as she took his fingers in her own. ‘Free to choose one of three ways. You can leave Fahsi and go your own way. Or perhaps you can consider the Fate of this entire world in the hands of your grandmother. Or maybe you can escape with the madonnas as you do now, losing all fear of your past and future. It is a conundrum, isn’t it? Every choice shall give you freedom but I ask you, shall every choice give you self-worth? Ah me, whatever way, you must decide. No one shall force you.’
He snorted, lifting his shoulders and curling his mouth until the effort flattened him. ‘No. No one forces me and yet mortals die, Siofra say the world depends on me, you say I have a choice and yet the truth is I have no choice at all. Do I, Moonlady?’
The woman bent down close by his face as he lay there and he fell into a night sky and stars and wisps of palest grey cloud. ‘Think of curios, Finnian.’ Her soft voice soothed. ‘Curios, curiosa, curiosity. And remember most urgently that time passes. Isolde gets closer and closer. And remember this,’ she ran her delicate fingers through his hair and his eyes closed as he heard her melting tones, ‘I saw her stare on old dry writing in a learned tongue…. and move a hand as if that writing or the figured page were some dear cheek.’
Finnian’s dreams tore at his sanity – unmitigated images of Poli as the merrow slit his belly, of the screaming babe being tossed from one hoof to another until it was lifeless. And then softer images of the scribe in her grey clothes, her hand reaching to smooth a wisp of black hair behind her ear and then the same hand tracing the words she had written. Finnian moved closer in his dream and reached out to touch her shoulder, the very action filling him with warmth and desire and she turned and stared at him and then back at the papers before her. He looked over her shoulder and there in brutal colours were drawings of Poli, of the babe. He lurched back but woke as he moaned and thrashed about on the divan. Sweat drenched him, his breath jagged and short. He lay sucking in the deadly mist until he relaxed and drifted again, sleep dragging him from the fear and violence of his thoughts.
Much later a hand shook his shoulder. ‘Effendi, you should wake. Your time is up.’
He opened eyes that ached. His mouth was filled with the taste of stale vomit and his body smelled of putrid sweat and other excrescences.
‘Pay for more?’ The grubby hand held out a black tablet.
Temptation pulled at his limbs, desire for release incarnate tugged at his mind. The word coward whispered in his ears.
‘Effendi?’ The voice hung disembodied about him.
At the other end of the room someone spoke, an incomprehensible garble. The voice turned toward the sound and grumbled, a mean whisper. ‘Dungheap fool – he’s almost done for and then another body must be dumped, another couch to scrub and clean.’ He turned back and grimaced at Finnian. ‘Effendi? You pay?’
Finnian pushed himself up, unable to mask the screaming pain of longing as he groaned. ‘No, no more.’ He pulled his soiled clothes around him as he stood, his legs caving, the room tilting.
‘Effendi,’ the hands belonging to the wheedling voice steadied him, the tone whining and persistent. ‘A little to function? Maybe half a Madonna?’
Finnian pushed the voice roughly and lurched toward the curtained partition.
‘Stinking coward.’ The voice followed him. ‘Coward.’
The dark alleys smelled fresher than the opium den as Finnian leaned against the crumbling mud-walls. Vomit rushed into his mouth and he retched till his sides ached and there was nothing left but yellow froth. People shuffled past, stepping out of the way of the mess, turning their heads, cursing him for the fool he was and he cringed under their insults. He grabbed at the arm of a hunched old man, his grimy fingers leaving a streak on the dirty robes of the beggar. ‘Hammam? Where?’ His voice rasped and he felt as if he floated and looked down on himself. Help me.
‘Poor bastard,’ the beggar stepped back from all that Finnian represented. ‘Here,’ he held out a cup of half eaten rice from a distance. ‘Eat it and you’ll feel better. The hammam is in Fahrouk’s Street, that way. It’s public and free.’ He shuffled off and shame burned Finnian’s already dry skin as he held the beggar’s offering in his trembling hands. He scooped the paltry rice into his mouth, chewed and swallowed the glutinous lump, nausea almost forcing it back up again but it settled in his belly, a tiny mound as heavy as the self-loathing that hovered about him. Pushing away from the wall with what little strength the rice proffered, he walked toward the baths, following the beggar’s directions, touching the walls with one hand like a blind man. He could not bear to think. Every second, a little door opened in his mind and the demons pushed but he pushed back. He wouldn’t think, not yet.
As he entered, people stepped back to hold their noses or put hands over their mouths. He approached a young attendant and with a mesmer to blind the boy’s evident distaste, he asked for a private room. Passing gelt over, he requested the boy buy him clothes, serviceable cotton ones in a plain colour. The boy showed him to a chamber divided into three spaces and then left to do Finnian’s bidding, leaving him to stand in the steam, swaying weakly and incapable of thinking what he must do next.
‘Effendi.’ A male voice spoke through the mist and a tall, solidly built man approached, shiny with an oil slick and smelling of lemons. ‘Effendi, shower first. Over there is a tap. You need to wash.’ He led Finnian by t
he hand and pushed him gently under the shower, urging him to pull off the evil-smelling garb. He caught up the clothes in a bag and vanished through a door, reappearing with a bar of plain soap. ‘Here. Wash.’
Finnian rubbed at his body, the creamy lather pushing at the foul coating of vomit and excrement so that it slid away in the water. He hadn’t the strength to scrub hard but he washed every inch, some semblance of clean appearing. The fellow reappeared again through the steam and passed him a thin piece of cotton to wrap around his waist. Taking him by the hand again, he led him to the first partition, the warm room, where he could sit and perspire.
‘Effendi,’ the tellak said, eyes filled with gentleness and understanding. ‘You have been to the dens. I recognize the signs. Sit here and sweat for a little, not too long. My name is Ibn and I am your bath attendant. I will come back shortly.’
Finnian watched the fellow turn and leave through the steam as if it were a dream. His legs folded and he sat on the stone step next to the wall, leaning back, closing his eyes and allowing the warmth to enfold him. He slept a dreamless sleep, exhaustion blotting out everything.
Ibn’s hand shook his shoulder gently. ‘Effendi, ten minutes only. It is enough. I think you are too weak to go to the hot room. Come to the cooling room, and I shall give you your treatment.’
The cooling room had a narrow stone slab on which Finnian lay as Ibn proceeded to wash him with warm water and to scrub his limbs with a hard little square of toweling. ‘Ibn’s brother is an opium addict, sir. It is wise if you do not return. My family is distraught that their son is a den wraith and they have begged Sidi Hamou of the Djinns to protect him but I believe it is all too late. The drug has him in its grasp and he has lost the will to fight. I tell you sir, as Lalla Rekya Bint El Khamar of the Bathhouses is my witness, if I can persuade just one person never to return to the clutches of the Black Madonnas, then I shall die happy.’
‘Then die happy, my friend,’ croaked Finnian, ‘for I am not going back. I want to but I shall not.’
‘Oh effendi, you gladden my sad heart. But you see how you crave it? So strong is the kiss of the Madonna, one kiss and you desire more. She is like your Lian Shee of Trevallyn, have you heard of her? Because I can see you are perhaps a Trevallyn man and not a Raji like myself.’
Finnian nodded. He was Færan; of course he knew of the Lian-Shee. Aine, I don’t just know of her, I know her – the beautiful seductress who, like the veela, seeks mortals, loves them and leaves them doomed to pine to death, desiring the affections of that shallow black heart.
Ibn poured oil on his palms and began to massage Finnian’s body, the touch of the hands anchoring him when he had thought he might float away for eternity. The tellak pushed deep into the muscles, into soft tissue, reversing the damage of the sickly drug. This time, pictures and words traveled through Finnian’s mind, of stars and the moon and a woman’s voice saying, ‘Every choice shall give you freedom’. But then thoughts of Isolde dropped into his consciousness like the heaviest paperweights and he moaned.
‘Too hard, sir? But you see I loosen the tautness which allows the poison to remove itself. Trust Ibn, I will have you feeling halfway to your good life in a moment. Better that you let me massage deeply even though it hurts. Sometimes there is no gain to be had without a little pain.’ The tellak kneaded away as if he worked at bread dough, pushing and pulling, and Finnian succumbed to the rough tenderness of the massage. Nothing was said as the sound of hand on body, the drip of water, the hiss of steam and the occasional groan from Finnian filled the sanctum. Finally the tellak covered Finnian in warmed towels. ‘When you are ready sit up but do it slowly my friend, for you are very weak. I shall send in the boy with tea and with rice-cakes and honey. Eat and drink, put a lining back in your stomach. Everything will seem less traumatic then. Oh, and the boy has the clothes for you.’ Ibn turned to leave and Finnian called to him.
‘Thank you.’
Ibn salaamed. ‘It is my job, effendi,’ he said as the boy laid a tray on the step with a pile of clothes alongside.
Finnian unfolded the neat pile and pulled on rough calico trousers and a kurta, the clothes plain and strong and with no embellishment. He was glad there was no mirror, he knew the sight of the dissolute face would be too much – he could not yet face himself. Value, worth – the words bullied him with no mercy because he knew he was worth nothing and so he quickly poured a tea, the peppermint refreshing him with its astringence, the rice-cakes with honey creaming down the side tasting like a feast. Finally he knew he could no longer postpone the inevitable. He must examine all that had passed.
Of Poli and the infant he could barely think, offering a prayer to Aine the Mother-Creator to protect the grief-stricken families. But he began to examine his opium-filled dreams in detail. Perhaps the illusory Moonlady was right. He cared not for self-worth and why should he? Who cared anyway? What had he ever done of value, who would he be valuable to? Only his avaricious grandmother, that was the obvious answer. Even then it would merely be for what he might have in his possession.
Isolde. Is it true that she has no way of seeing what I do? Am I really free of her? He could well believe she made the young Finnian paranoid, carving up his self-esteem like a butcher dressing a side of goat but he couldn’t believe the old woman had no innate scrying skill, that even now she must surely see him sitting in the hammam taking his time. He looked over his shoulder but there was nothing, only his shadow on the wall.
He laid his head back in relief, his muscles loosening as he wondered about those he had met most recently – about Gio, about the generous beggar. And about Ibn who like the others was mortal and who had shown him sympathy when he deserved none. So curious. He would never see them again and they owed him nothing. So why do they have a care for me? He gazed at a golden drop of honey on the tray, no feasible answer presenting itself for where in his life would he ever have learned of care for care’s sake?
‘Effendi is better?’ Ibn’s face with its grave eyes appeared around the doorjamb.
‘Yes. Thank you. Can I have a moment more?’
‘Take your time. It is rare to have someone afford the private room here. If they have money they go to the Jahal Hammam on the rich side of Fahsi past the souks.’ He salaamed and left soundlessly, a waft of steam closing over him as if he had never been.
If they care for no reason then perhaps one should care back. Finnian recalled the sadness in Ibn’s eyes as he talked of his brother. He loved his brother as I could have loved mine – the brother I never knew and who was murdered by one of the Cantrips of Unlife. Instantly the lassitude left him, to be replaced by poisonous hatred and by the purpose that had become lost in the opium dens.
He wanted the charms for himself so that he could stand in front of Isolde and use the Earth charm to kill her. And to watch her eyes as they clouded and as he said to her, ‘I’ve beaten you, Isolde.’
It had all become clearer than a mountain stream. Moonlady? Wherever you are, I have made my choice; I will find the charms and the only reason I do this is to stop my grandmother, to pay her back once and for all. Purely revenge. Not for you nor the world out there, but for me. ‘Ibn, Ibn, where are you?’ He stood at the doorway as the tellak hurried up, the young bath-boy by his side.
‘What is it? Are you ill?’
‘No, I’ll survive this time but I need you to direct me. I’ve heard there is an antiquarian in the souks, a seller of all things useful from past and present. I must find him quickly.’
‘Ah, effendi means Curiosa, the antique dealer. I’ll have the boy take you if you think you are strong enough although I can’t imagine why you would want to do business with that shady infidel. He deals in odd curios, hence his name, and his background is a mystery. It is known he came from Veniche but the tales change with the teller. I have heard he is a nobleman fallen foul of his family and the Venichese judiciary. It’s a good enough provenance and it serves. You are well enough?’
Finnia
n nodded. Curiosa. ‘I shall feel stronger if I see the sun and breathe some fresh air and I think I might need a coffee.’
Ibn laughed, a mellow sound, the antithesis of his habitual gravity. ‘There is a coffeehouse near Curiosa. Sit and drink before you do business with the man, sir, for you are still quite weak and you know what they say, more haste, less speed. Curiosa is a cunning merchant who has lived in the souks long enough to understand the ways of the Raji world. I don’t believe he is an honest man and Aine knows he is a wealthy one. Sometimes I think wealth and dishonesty go hand in hand.’
‘You sound almost jaded about life, Ibn.’ Perhaps you are like me… a cynic.
‘Not jaded but certainly realistic because I have seen all sorts in here, my friend. Besides, one has to be realistic when one’s brother seeks the Madonna’s arms. It changes one’s whole perspective. But,’ his voice rose cheerfully, ‘it also teaches you to value every second you are given. I say a prayer of gratitude daily for my own good fortune.’
‘Then Ibn, one can only assume that there is good fortune in your life for which you can be thankful. As you say, there are people like your brother and many others who aren’t so fortunate. I wish I had more time as I would like to ask you if you think you make your own good fortune. Or is it purely the dice falling one way for one person or another way for someone-else?’ He reached for Ibn’s hand and tipped gelt into it and then swiftly walked out, the boy hurrying behind as Ibn called after him.
‘It is some of both sir, luck and effort. Take care.’
Luck and effort. But Ibn’s words faded in the light that dazzled him as he stepped into the street. He brought up a hand to shield his eyes. The boy tugged at his kurta and he turned to follow, the dust and noise more bearable now. A sense of need began to fill his bones and he chafed the boy to quicken their pace. He must keep his lead ahead of Isolde. He had wasted time in an obscene indulgence and it had done nothing but weaken him. He reached to his pocket for the small affirming square of parchment and stopped, the urgency of the moment freezing.